#emma robert

I’m part of a minuscule group of people who believed that maybe, just maybe, after eight seasons, it’s two leads Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson leaving might give the show the revitalizing kick it needs. They have given us some of the most iconic horror characters in history, (Tate Langdon, Mr. March, Lana Winters, Cordelia Goode), but after a while, it’s possible all these characters could start to run together. To inject the show with a new theme, a new core cast and a new vibe might just be the thing to bring back some of the show’s originality, but the first episode of American Horror Story season 8 never really gets where it wants to be.

The first episode of season 9, AHS: 1984, certainly does feel different. While the first scene is your typical mysterious murder blood bath, a pile of impaled teens with chopped off ears, it’s followed by a colorful, campy, 80s synth-pop workout video starring the show's core young cast. Coupled with a catchy tune and neon pink title cards (with character names like Xander, Chet, and Montana) the scene firmly placed us in the decade of leg warmers and crop tops.

The firm placing and over the top recreation of the 80s cultural landscape is the premiers most entertaining, fun, novel component. The costuming (neon, scrunchies, crop tops, windbreakers) and puffy hair, the music, and the dialogue are so campy and over the top that it works. It’s a love affair with classic 80s slashers of the time, down the season’s summer camp setting. It even changes it’s the usual style of gore, favoring the simpler visual effects techniques of the era were the blood is just red corn syrup that flies in every direction, even out of peoples eyes.

However as the plot is also incredibly cliché (group of hot youngsters works a summer at a camp haunted by a serial killer) it’s quite possible that all these fun, campy dressings won’t hold the people's interest for very long.  The classic character tropes (nerdy virgin, oversexed barbie, hot-headed roid monster, overtly sexual gay guy) and camera angles (peeking out of the bushes as if someone is watching the campers) are all a loving tribute to the 80s, but also quite boring. As the seasons Big Baddie “Mr Jingles” chases Emma Roberts through the woods, at a glandular pace, she trips multiple times, get’s hit with falling branches and falls into some mud, using some very well used tropes in the slasher, you have to wonder how long these familiar scenes will work. The gore isn’t enough to excite, as there isn’t very much of it in the premier, just the initial scene and one other killing tell us that this is a horror show at all and not a coming of age movie.

Hope lies in the season’s core actors Billie Lourde, Emma Roberts and Cody Fern, all returning after last seasons nostalgic “Apocalypse”, with new characters and mannerisms. While they may not have the same pull or raw power in scenes that Evan and Sarah once had, they’re talented in their own right. Emma has to really stretch herself to play Brooke, a non-blonde who is also not a raging bitch like all her other characters, and is surprisingly good at it. Billie plays glam rocker Montanabr, an 80s sex siren who loves aerobics and headbands, and is a fair bit more animated than we’ve seen her previous characters.  Fern plays Xavier, an outlandish, effeminate aerobics instructor who convinces everyone to work at the dreaded camp. I expect these three will do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting, as Gus Kenworthy plays a character who never wears a shirt, and Matthew Morrison’s character only has one personality trait, and that’s that he has a big dick. Those jokes got boring after about thirty seconds. Leslie Grossman play a delightfully repressed ex victim of Mr Jingles, who’s religious zealot ways are sure to make her snap at some point, and the delightful Angelica Ross plays Nurse Rita. Zach Villa is set to become more central as the local psychopath who attacks Brooke, the newest on the long list of heartthrob killers to sexually confuse people.

Julianne Nicholson, Emma Roberts & Zachary Quinto To Star In New Matthew Newton Pic ‘Who We Are Now’

Julianne Nicholson, Emma Roberts and Zachary Quinto have been set to star in Who We Are Now, the follow-up movie for writer-director Matthew Newton after his SXSW-winning pic From Nowhere. The new pic, which reunites Newton with his From Nowhere star Nicholson, has just started shooting in New York.

Cinematography Appreciation 

Cinematographer  Michael Simmonds